The Morning Rant [Diogenes]

Victor Davis Hanson, somebody whom I greatly admire, said something a couple of weeks ago which prompted me to stir up the grey matter and start hitting the keyboard. He said the Left/Democrats are essentially engaging in Sedition and Insurrection.

Hmmm…

--Sedition is conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state.
--Insurrection is crime and/or a violent uprising against an authority or government.
Serious charges indeed. Kinda sounds true too, don’t they? And this caused me to think back on what I remember of the scale of conflict.

Just where is America today?

Back in the late 80's I was running one of the Training Divisions for officers and senior NCOs, at the Army's Intelligence School. At that time, Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) was the big thing, it was de rigueur for military studies. The thinking then (among some anyway) was that all future wars were going to be LIC because nation-states could not afford long protracted WW2/Korea kinds of fighting (think Ukraine); and Vietnam was, ultimately, a failed application of big army tactics (and politics) in a low-scale protracted infantry war.

I appreciated the LIC advocates then, but never was fully on board with their perspective. Does Special Operations designed to counter LIC have a role? Sure. But they aren’t the end-all to warfighting. I have several reasons for my position.

--Wars have a life of their own and predicting them is a fool’ errand.
--Many of the LIC advocates were, frankly, a bit insufferable so I wasn’t inclined to agree with them.
--And, I very much believe you will always need tanks and artillery at some point in a nation’s existence to continue as a nation.

I feel somewhat vindicated in that two years after that assignment, The Army was engaged in the biggest tank battle since the Battle of Kursk. Interestingly one of those LIC advocates showed up at my van during Desert Storm essentially looking for places to send his special operators. I looked at him and just said, “LIC huh?” He at least had the good sense to laugh.

So what is Low Intensity Conflict? Its definition has evolved to this: LIC is a limited politico-military struggle to achieve political, social, economic, or psychological objectives. It is often protracted and ranges from diplomatic, economic, or psychological pressures through terrorism and insurgency. LIC is generally confined to a geographic area and is often characterized by constraints on the weaponry, tactics, and levels of violence.

So, it is pretty much anything you want it to be.

Today we see alarming growth in each of the areas of political, social, economic and psychological arenas. Pick a venue, city or state and we see “protestors” becoming more organized, better equipped, and better trained, and working towards specific objectives. Violence is trending upwards, and it is working its way through different urban areas (the preferred battlespace) and tactics are getting better. But…is it LIC or really just upticks in crime? What is going on?

Examples include (and in no particular order):

• Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials are accusing Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA) of setting a mob of left-wing rioters on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, which landed the agent in the emergency room.

• Democrat Perkins being happy about the lives lost in Texas because they were all white.

• Two assassinations of ICE agents.

• Two assignation attempts against President Trump.

• Judges ruling on ridiculous cases completely outside their venues.

• ANTIFA/BLM direct actions in cities like Seattle, Portland, Chicago, NY, etc.

• Attacks on Tesla cars and drivers

• Pennsylvania Governor’s mansion broken into and burned.

• New Mexico’s Republican HQs burned

• No King rally’s coinciding with political murders in Minnesota.

And so much more…

So, I won’t bore you all with definitions and studies and such about all this. You are all smart enough to see what is happening.

Bottom line question…is this just violence as usual, or is America in a Low Intensity Conflict?

What do you think?

posted by Open Blogger at 11:00 AM

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